Data Center Operations Program Manager

About the role

Built to set the gold standard for integrated AI infrastructure, Crux AI is a newly formed, U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company created to remove the physical and operational constraints on consequential AI ambitions. Crux brings together power, high-density data centers, TPU silicon, networking, orchestration software, and ongoing operations as one integrated system. Crux is being capitalized to plan every layer together, develop each one to demanding standards, and operate the whole system with efficiency and reliability. That gives hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, sovereign customers, enterprises, and AI-native companies greater freedom to pursue the AI they are here to create.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical and commercial vetting that turns a raw deal into a fundable project — the work that separates a defensible capacity commitment from an inflated one. When a partner asks Crux to guarantee an eight- or nine-figure sum, you test that number against schedule, equipment composition, and real construction cost before it goes to leadership.
• Report into the Chief Program Manager's organization and sit at the interface between Data Center Construction, Energy, MEP, and Finance, ensuring every project in the active portfolio is executed against its approved numbers and flagging variances immediately.
• Vet the technical and commercial terms of new capacity deals — schedule, equipment cost, equipment composition — before they're recommended to leadership, right-sizing commitments rather than defaulting to the partner’s ask.
• Track every live data center project in the portfolio against its approved cost and schedule baseline, and own the process for flagging and escalating variance early.
• Partner with Data Center Construction, Energy, and MEP Systems teams to translate field-level execution status into Finance‑ready program reporting.
• Own the interface between build‑side execution and the cost and margin model of record — your data is what Finance’s models are actually built on.
• Run the change‑control process for scope, schedule, or cost changes on active projects, with sign‑off gates that keep Finance and Development aligned in real time.
• Build and maintain the tools that make deal vetting fast and repeatable — this cannot be a one‑off analysis redone from scratch on every deal.
• Default to AI‑agentic workflows for cost/schedule reconciliation and variance tracking, rather than adding headcount to keep up with portfolio growth.

Requirements

• 8+ years in data center construction, capital projects, or infrastructure delivery with direct P&L, cost, or schedule ownership.
• Demonstrated experience vetting or negotiating capacity/commercial terms against real technical and cost data, not top‑down assumptions.
• Comfortable moving fluently across finance, construction, and technology — this is not a single‑lane specialist seat.
• Treat “$900M is the ask” as a hypothesis until the equipment and schedule say otherwise — you test the number before you defend it.
• Bring bad news first, unprompted, and own the result — hierarchy doesn’t intimidate you and you don’t intimidate easily.
• High tolerance for ambiguity; you build the next version of processes as the portfolio outgrows existing ones.
• AI